


Core

by Belzime



Category: modao zu shi, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Descriptions of Surgery, F/M, M/M, Other, Past Child Abuse, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:42:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27462877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belzime/pseuds/Belzime
Summary: Wei Wuxian is dying. Mo Xuanyu makes a deal too early; he'll give Yiling Laozu his golden core in exchange for shelter from the Mo's and learning the dark arts.
Relationships: Jiāng Yànlí/Jīn Zǐxuān, Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian, Mo Xuanyu/Wen Ning - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 80





	Core

"He's dying." Wen Qing says. "Without his golden core, there's no way to fight the backlash. We can keep pushing energy into him, but with nothing to anchor it."

"Can you give him mine?" Lan Wangji asks, and Wen Qing can hear how desperate he must be to even consider... She really can't go through that again. 

"He would never let you do that." Wen Qing shakes her head. He would never forgive himself. "  
"I will rip my core from my own body if you will sew it into Wei Ying." he says. Firmly.

"And then what?" she asks. "Then who will play clarity? Who will play the spells you've written to save him? Can A-Ning redirect the corrupted energy? He'll still rebound. He'll just take your core with him and you won't be able to stop it."

"I will ask brother to---"

"Theres no time. I owe this man everything for saving my family, my brother, but I---"

"A-Jie!" Wen Ning's voice roars above their raised tones, "A-Jie! I found a donor!" He cheers, running towards them with a bundle of *something* in his arms.

"A-Ning. Tell me you did not kidnap--"

"No! Not kidnap! Rescued! He volunteered!" the Ghost General says, thrusting the bundle of fabric forward for examination. In his arms was a boy, several years younger than themselves, maybe younger still it was impossible to tell with how thin he was.

"Someone is really just willing to *give away* their golden core?" Wen Qing asked, eyebrows shot straight past her hairline. 

"I wasn't using it anyway." the bundle says as Wen Ning carefully lowers a child to the ground. He still needs to lean on the fierce corpse for support, but he straightens his spine when he speaks. "He can have it. He can have whatever he wants from me. I just.... Just help me. I don't rally care, just shelter me here. Don't let them take me back." He pleads, small hands gripped tight in the Ghost General's dust crusted robes.

"Don't let who take you back?" Wen Qing asks

"My... The Mos." he settles on. "My father was a cultivator. So I was able to make a core. It isn't much, but" he says offering his wrist for inspection.

"You would really give your Core to Wei Ying?" Lan Wangji says breathless.

"I will." the boy nods. "If the Yiling Patriarch will take me as his apprentice and never send me back to the Mo's."

"I can not speak for Wei Ying. You have my word that I will defend you." Lan Wangji says. "But if you harm Wei Ying, I will end you myself." 

The boy nods. "It's a deal then."

"Not so fast, kid." Wen Qing says, "You need to eat first or you'll pass out... You'll need to be awake for the procedure. It's extremely painful." she pauses, turns to Lan Wangji before saying, "and there's no guarantee it will take."  
_______

Wen Qing told Mo Xuanyu about the procedure as he ate, then left him with Wen Ning so she could prepare for surgery. 

"You absolute bastard," she says to Wei Wuxian when she is sure no one but him can hear, "You promised me you'd never make me do this again."

He doesn't reply.  
\------------

Mo Xuanyu lays down next to the Yiling Patriarch. The man seems like he had once been as tall and fit as the cultivator in white, but his body nearly as malnourished and sleep deprived as he himself often is. "This is your last chance to walk away." The doctor tells him. "This is going to hurt."

"I've felt worse." he claims, certain the years of torture and starvation have clawed him to numbness.

It's the worst pain he has ever felt.

Wen Ning wakes him gently three times, running cool water over his face and holding him down whole he thrashes and screams, holds his hands and soothes him to sleep between assisting his sister who holds a piece of his soul in her palms. He watches its faint glow warm life on the Ghost General's face as he passes out.  
\------------

He slips in and out of awareness. A cool towel on his forehead. Hushed voices bickering, worried. Cold hands brushing through his hair. Guqin strings being plucked endlessly. 

He wakes to an argument.

"He's a child." Someone snaps. "He needs it more than I do. How could you let him--"

"He volunteered."

"What if A-Yuan volunteered?"

"He's too young, obviously."

"And this kid isn't?"

"We weren't when our homes burned."

"Lan Wangji!" 

"Are you really complaining about your life being saved? How can you of all people criticize what he's done for you?" A woman's voice bites out. 

"Wei-gongsi." the Ghost General says from the corner of Mo Xuanyu's eye. 

"I wanted to." He struggles to sit up. Fire burns through his abdomen. The Ghost General catches him by the shoulders and lowers him gently back onto the makeshift cot.

"Why?" the man--the Yiling Patriarch--asks. He looks broken, eyes wild.

"I need your help." he answers. "And your protection" 

"And what if I don't help you? I'm the Yiling Patriarch. Now that I have your core, what use could I have for you?" the man asks him. 

"Wei Ying." the one in white says sternly. 

"Lan Zhan, it's not like I won't help him. But this child clearly hasn't thought this through. How could he know we wouldn't just kill him after getting his core?"

"It's a chance I was willing to take." Mo Xuanyu says. "Anything, even death is worth getting out of there. I'll pay any price you ask."

"See? There this goes, offering more than he already has." the man heaves a sigh into the hand pressed against his face. Mo Xuanyu watches his abdomen stitching itself back together, slowly, through the gap in his single untied robe. "Alright, kid. Protection goes without saying around here. You'll be safe just as long as you don't leave the burial mounds. If you do, you'll have to take Wen Ning with you. What kind of help are you looking for, exactly?"

"I want you to teach me how to get revenge. Show me how to use resentful energy like you do." 

"I'm not in the habit of taking on apprentices; I'd be a terrible teacher. I was a terrible student. They kicked me out of school, just ask Lan Zhan."

"But I need you to teach me!" Mo Xuanyu insists. "Even if I die, my soul won't rest until I get back at the monsters who humiliated my mother and took her from me."

"Look, Kid. I don't teach those kinds of things. And I won't teach this" the man waves his demon flute, "to anyone. We can shelter you here. Maybe I can show you some talismans, but that's it. The rest is out of the question.

"Thank you for your core. I'm afraid I can't help you, so you should really take it back."

"I won't." Mo Xuanyu says, looking the Yiling Patriarch in the eyes. "I said I would give it to you. And he said you wouldn't send me back to the Mo's. 

"Take your core back, kid. You can stay here either way."

"No." Mo Xuanyu says. "it won't do me any good anyway. You don't have to teach me anything, just let me stay. I'll learn by watching you."

The man raises an eyebrow and really looks at Mo Xuanyu for the first time. Finally he says, "If you think you can do it, I'll let you stay by my side. I get how desperate you must be, kid. These cores? They're everything to people like us."

Mo Xuanyu simply shakes his head and says, "Not everything. But I think you know that."  
________________________

Several days later, Granny brings A-Yuan back and Wen Ning catches him before he can knock Mo Xuanyu over in his haste to see Xian-ge and Rich-ge. "Wei-gongsi is still recovering" he scolds gently, "And we must be careful with Mo-gongsi. He saved Wei-gongsi's life, after all."The fearsome Ghost General certainly cuts a terrifying figure, carrying a fussing toddler. 

The toddler, for his part, stares up at their new guest with wide, curious eyes. "Want Xian-ge" he grumbles.

"Wei-gongsi is resting. Please let him recover a little longer. We can play over there instead." Wen Ning tells him. The boy agrees, but only if wan-yu-ge comes with. Wen Ning starts to say that he should be resting, too, but Mo Xuanyu waves him off. He informs the toddler that Wan-yu isn't his name, but he will be happy to teach it to him later. He is curious about what it might feel like to play.

Wen Qing yells at him for tearing his stitches, but he thinks getting stabbed with her needles so that he could not move for days might have been worth it.  
____________

The music seems to be helping. Life slowly makes its way back into Wei Ying's body. Wen Qing is less afraid that he will be torn apart any second, starts thinking he resembles just a little more of the boy her brother befriended and a little less of the weapon that fought her uncle to a draw.

In no time at all, he is back to complaining about potatoes and turnips, hiding from her needles beind Hanguang Jun, and dodging chores like he gets paid for slacking. He practices sword forms with a stick when he thinks no one is watching. He tinkers with talismans and spiritual tools. The only change seems to be his ever-present shadows in the form of a man playing guqin and a child at his elbow watching his every move.  
_____________  
Wei Wuxian is loath to admit that this kid is a fast learner. Picks up on things he says and does, follows the way his mind jumps and swerves, becomes a part of his unfinished sentences almost as seamlessly as Lan Zhan. And he's talented, too. Comes up with some of his own adjustments to talasmens Wei Wuxian has set him to. Questions everything like his mind was just as starved as his body. Vicious little thing. Reminds him of him at that age, and at this one. Far less playful and lacking in a Shijie and a Jiang Cheng to keep him steady. Far more hatred burning where his core should be. It is hard to tell by watching him if this child possesses a fierce sense of justice or an ingrained hunger for revenge.

The boy's sense of pride and inexplicable eagerness to put himself after what he believes to be important is all too familiar a combination.

Wei Wuxian is careful never to reveal the Stygin Tiger seal in his presence.

Just in case.  
__________________________

Wen Ning didn't mind his master's apprentice following him around. It gave Wei-gongsi and Lan-gongsi time to themselves without their young chaperones. After enough weeks the young man had even stopped poking his skin and prodding him with questions about his revival, and started asking after his interests.

"I can ask Wei-ge to help me make a talisman to work on your fine motor control." he offered., I'm sure we could carve a how out of something and Lan-ge will be able to lend us some string? There's hardly a shortage of rocks, for arrows." Mo Xuanyu proposes, gesticulsting wildly like Wei-gongsi does when he's onto something.

"Oh. I wouldn't need anything like that. Not when I'm like this." Wen Ning says, reducing a Boulder to dust without breaking eye contact.

"If you practice, you could shoot down birds for free meat." The teenager says, "I'm sure A-Yuan and Wen-gunnia would appreciate that. Wei-laozu could certainly use more meat!"

Wen Ning stares at him. "If... If it isn't too much trouble." he says.

Mo Xuanyu grins brightly. "Then let's get started!" he grabs Wen Ning's wrist and drags him to the demon-slaying cave, chattering excitedly about how to increase dexterity and fine motor control. "Maybe it could extend to facial expression! Sensory input! Warm and cold, taste and smell!" he theorizes.

Wen Ning is skeptical that they could help him that far, but happy to let him dream.  
_________________

"Ah, Mo-gongsi." The Ghost General says, catching the teen's attention, "Here. This is for you." he hands the boy a dark brown cloak. The stitching is crude but holds through the thick material. "For winter." he says.

"Did you make this?" the teen asks, awed.

"Ah, yes." he can make no expressions now, but once he would have blushed and stuttered. Maybe hid behind his sister. "I've been practicing my dexterity by sewing. This is to thank you for your hard work."

"Youre amazing!" Mo Xuanyu smiles and grabs the Ghost General's hands in his own, examining them and grinning a little maically at Wen Ning. "If you can improve this much, You'll be shooting arrows in no time! What else can these hands do? I'll bet you could embroider if you could feel what you were doing... "

Wen Ning wondered what it would be like to feel the soft pads of teenager's hands folded around his own. To know that hugs his Jie-jie gives him press warmth into him the same way they used to. To be able to embrace A-Yuan without worrying about squishing him too tight or too gently on the first try.

Wen Ning feels his facial muscles twitch, just slightly, not doing much of anything. Mo Xuanyu must have seen it because his ears turn red and he says something Wen Ning doesn't think he was supposed to hear. "You'd look lovely when you smile" before saying more intently something about facial muscle control and sprinting off toward Wei-gongsi's cave, cloak fisted tightly to his chest.

Wen Ning is still just elated that the boy liked the cloak. Maybe he could make new ones for A-Yuan and Jie-jie if they got more fabric.

_______________________

By the time Mo Xuanyu is eighteen, Wen Ning can play a few notes on the guqin (a violation against the sanctity of song, Lan Wangji had called it) , trim Wen Yuan’s hair, and embroider small toys and cloths for fast turnaround at the market. He's able to traverse distances quickly, so when he takes his bow he comes back with an array of wild pheasants, fish, and even a few times deer. He cannot eat them himself, but he likes watching the way his loved ones grow stronger and fuller after every meal. Jiejie and Master Wei have returned to their original vibrance, and A-Yuan is growing taller every day now that he's got enough to eat. A-Jie says Granny and Uncle Four look like they'll have a few more years now. 

The only one who isn't thriving is Mo Xuanyu. He grows, but not enough. Early years of malnourishment seem to have left their mark on his fairy-like form. 

"I've saved you an extra portion." Wen Ning tells him, scooping meat into the teen's bowl, "You're not allowed to bribe master Wei or let A-Yuan eat it either." he says firmly, but not unkindly. 

"You don't have to baby me."Mo Xuanyu says, glaring slightly.

"It is not a crime to spoil your friends." the fierce corpse decides. "So let me this time, A-Yu?" Mo Xuanyu says nothing, eats what was put in his bowl. Wen Ning gently pats him on the head, face death-still but smiling all the same.

\-----------------------------------------

"Where is Mo-gongsi?" Wen Ning asks.

"I'm not sure." Granny says, "Said something about going back? Unfinished business?" she shrugs and goes back to peeling potatoes.

If blood could have drained from every part of his body, it would have. "A-Jie." he tells his sister, "I know I shouldn't leave when master Wei is away, but A-Yu, he--"

" Go." his sister tells him, "Go find that idiot and bring him back. I can handle things here."

He runs.  
___________________________  
Mo Xuanyu is well past the village, several hours out by foot on a road he'd once taken, much smaller, far less certain.

He feels a strong blow wind past him from behins, then once again in his face as The Ghost General comes to a stop twenty yards ahead. 

"A-Yu!" he calls. "Come home."

"That's exactly what I'm doing, Ning-ge. I am going home. To finish things."

"Thats not home, A-Yu."he says, "Home is with Master Wei, and A-Yuan, and A-Jie. And me. Come home with me."

"Don't try to stop me. This is what I was here for all along. You knew that when you carried me to Yiling. You knew that when I let your sister carve out my core." The boy says. "You might have forgotten, but I haven't.

"I know the rumors, Wen Ning. You destroyed the Jin soldiers who killed you. For everything they did to your family. And now you would ask me to do anything less to the ones who tortured me? Who killed my mother? No."

"That wasn't me." Wen Ning says. "That was--"

"All of the rage you've kept inside you. Who are you to tell me that your rage, that Wei Wuxian's rage are any more just than my own?" he says, 

"They deserve this. They deserve to be slaughtered, all of them."

Wen Ning stares at the young man, just a few years from the child he brought home. "Mo-gongsi." he sighs.

They stand there, measuring each other when a delicate golden butterfly finds them. Wei Wuxian's voice calls out from it, tells them, "It's your lucky day, kid. Take Wen Ning. Go to Moling. Investigate. Observe. Don't do anything before I arrive. They're trying to replicate my seal."

"Ha. You heard him." Mo Xuanyu says, crushing the butterfly in his hand, letting the dust crumble from his fingers, "Let's go."  
________________________

Wei Wuxian is having tea with his sister and her husband, clinging to Lan Zhans side to avoid that terrible beast Jin Guangyao gifted their nephew. The boy fell asleep crying five minutes ago, curled up on his sister's lap after being told to put the beast in another room while The Yiling Patriarch visits. It's a quiet day. He didn't think he would ever have many like this again.  
Nie Huaisang sits at the table, accepts a generous cup from the young Madam Jin.

"Wei-xiong. It's been so long." Huaisang says, "I haven't received any gossip from Yiling lately. Are you keeping things from me?"

"There isn't any gossip to share, Nie-xiong. Only turnips if you'd care to buy some. Wen Qing keeps refusing to let me plant potatoes, but if I can get Lotuses to bloom there, then I can farm anything." He's well aware that Huaisang's personal messenger hawk hadn't sent money or news from Lotus Pier, Lanling, or Qinghe in months. If something was going on, it was too important to entrust to even their secret coding system. 

"Lotuses in the burial mounds?" Jin Zixuan asks, sounding rather impressed.

"Mn." Lan Wangji nods.

"Hardly any gossip worth sharing." Wei Wuxian dismisses with a wave of his hand, "How are things in Qinghe?" 

"Nithing new in Qinghe. I really ding know... but if there was something to be mentioned, then i am not certain if it would have any thing to do with fierce corpses near mo-village. But I really don't know." Huaisang says into his tea. "Really, I don't know. I don't know why you're asking, but I'm sure it has nothing to do with a certain missing assassin or cursed iron seals if it has to do with anything at all. But I really wouldn't know." Huaisang sighs, fans himself. 

Wei Wuxian exchanges a glance with Lan Wangji. 

"What are?" Jin Zixuan asks.

"Not now, darling." Jiang Yanli pats his HEAD, turns to look at her brother, "I'm sorry you won't be able to stay longer. Come visit when you're finished. Ask A-Cheng if you need any help."

"We'll be back, Shijie." Wei Wuxian grins.

"Be safe. Both of you." She tells them as she cups their faces and pulls them close.

"Mn."Lan Wangji nods. 

"Hey, Jin Zixuan."We Wuxian says.

"Yeah?"

"Lend me two butterflies. Nie-xiong. I'll be borrowing your hawk."

"Of course, Wei-xiong." Nie Huaisang says behind his fan.

"Will I ever understand your brothers?" Jin Zixuan asks his wife. She simply smiles at him.  
______________________

Lan Wangji pulls Wei Ying into himself as they mount Bichen. He can feel the anxiety in his soulmate's bones vibrating through him. He's more than anxious about what they will find at Mo Village, and the flight will take some time.

He spares a thought, as they lift off, for the boy who bravely gave a part of himself so that Wei Ying could last this long. Wonders what would become of the child of he achieves what he's set out to do before they reach.

He knows that Wei Ying must be worried about the same.

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably get re-worked to hell and will definitely get a second chapter when I'm feeling up to writing it. Typos abound. If you have any suggestions or critiques, please let me know! This feels like it wants to be really different from anything else I've written, so I'll need a lot of work. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
